There was a certain sense of anticipation in the days leading up to last week’s court date for the three charged in the murder of a Powhatan High School student. The thought, of course, and the hope, was that we would finally get some answers.

While it can’t be denied that the community did receive more information about the case, I would be willing to guess most people read last week’s news reports with the same sinking feeling I did.

It was, in fact, just as many had suspected: no answers, no reasons, no logic to what had happened. 

There is a certain way that information—true or false—travels in a small community like ours. And the space in between the June 24 incident and last week’s court date had been long enough for many theories to surface. Many just couldn’t believe people who live here could do such a thing.

Maybe it had been self-defense.

Maybe it had all been a terrible, terrible accident.

It now appears to have been neither of those. And even if it was true what Stephanie Reynolds seemed to be hinting at during her testimony last week—that the shooting came in a moment of insanity following a day of drinking and drugs—there can be no more denying that Tahliek Taliaferro appears to have lost his life because two groups of young people were involved in a game that only one group knew the consequences of.

We’ll no doubt learn more as the courtroom drama plays, though it seems most of us already knew everything we really needed to know.

Too many lives have been lost or ruined, and no court will be able to right that wrong.

Schools a source of community pride

We hope our readers will enjoy the piece our staff put together this week on the strides Powhatan County Schools have made. Looking back at the data from the last 35 years, and speaking with some of the real people behind those numbers, it was more than obvious to us that the county school system has come a long way.

Through our research, we also discovered that the changes didn’t seem to have as much to do with money or time as with the dedication of the community and county leaders to providing the best education possible for our children.

Sure, we may have one of the nicest high school facilities to be found anywhere, but it wouldn’t be worth the brick and mortar if it didn’t also have a staff of passionate, top-notch teachers.

Perhaps School Board member Rick Gideons said it best a few weeks ago, when he pointed out that the force behind the change has been the educational leadership of so many current and former school leaders.

As the 2008-2009 school year kicks off this week, we at Powhatan Today wish all students, teachers and staff a happy and healthy school year and continued progress into the future.